Bodies squeezed into awkward outdoor spaces for art’s sake, stories relayed to the audience using headphones, conversations across the seafront made by semaphore: the fifth annual Coastal Currents festival across seaside resorts in East Sussex is all about site-specific shows and audience involvement.

“We want the public to be actively involved in pieces of work,” says curator Jane Greenfield. “We want them to be part of it, to assist or to follow the artists as they make their work.”

Willi Dorner’s Bodies In Urban Spaces opens the first weekend of the two-week festival. Readers might remember seeing the Austrian’s work in Brighton as part of the city’s annual festival in 2010. Performers lodged themselves in mid-air between signs and walls; two stood on their heads in the iron fencing around a tree outside Sainsbury’s.

A group of nimble dancers from Sussex have been brought together by Ian Nolan for the Hastings show, which begins from Priory Meadow Shopping Centre Square then takes in Hastings town centre before winding back out of town to Alexandra Park (free, meet noon and 4pm at the shopping centre, Saturday, September 21, and Sunday, September 22).

“There is no narrative. The idea is to ask people to look more closely at their surroundings, to look at the architecture differently, because the bodies distort and emphasise the design. The performers may be in the doorway of a private house or a public bench in a shopping centre.”

While the festival is in its fifth year, this is Greenfield’s first at the helm. She has focused the live programme over three weekends with the aim of tempting visitors from across the region for a day trip to the festival’s main hub in Hastings, or to St Leonards, Bexhill or Rye, where other events are taking place. A used shipping container by the Swan Boating Lake in Hastings’ Old Town will be converted into a temporary art space.

“It will make for quite a contrast to contemporary art and hopefully attract a mixed audience.”

Lyndall Phelps’ Rope will be the first in the space. In 2001 the artist, whose work is inspired by science, horticulture and women’s craft, began to painstakingly knit a red rope from wool. By 2008, she had finished three separate 100-metre ropes – red, blue and yellow – each composed of 30,000 knitted rows and 900,000 stitches.

“The repetitive production process references both mechanised fabrication and domestic craft,” says the artist, about the work running in the container from September 21 to 25 (free, noon to 6pm).

“Each new opportunity or development of the work affords a different context, allowing Rope to continually evolve and take on new meaning.”

Through headphones and a shared MP3 soundtrack, Walking Stories by Charlotte Spencer Projects will “guide you into a realm of spontaneous interactions with your surroundings and the others walking with you”.

The immersive theatre performance aims to “question our feelings about ourselves, community, time and journey” as it winds through Hastings’ Alexandra Park (September 28 and 29, 2pm and 4pm, meet at The Park Café, free, reserve ahead via website).

Greenfield picks out Save Me by Bristol-based duo Pete Phillips and Jodie Hawkes, aka Search Party, as a highlight.

The pair will stand at either ends of Hastings seafront promenade (October 5, 11am to 4pm, near the crazy golf course) and Bexhill promenade (October 6, 11am to 4pm, in front of De La Warr Pavilion) and wave flags at each other.

They will communicate a story through semaphore using the flags, while standing on metre-high platforms. The conversations they have will be written on large chalkboards and the audience can join in by tying messages to the platforms.

“It challenges the boundaries of intimacy and separation,” says Greenfield.

“The performers attempt an ongoing conversation that communicates across the space between them, exposing stories which are hidden, encoded, that simmer beneath the surface.”

Other festival highlights...

- Open Studios
Studios across Bexhill open their doors for the first time as Coastal Currents continues its take on the popular open studios movement. Caravan C26 at Rye Caravan Park and a shed at Fairlight are among the highlights. A free cycle tour leaving Hasting Pier at noon on September 22 will take in studios in Bexhill and St Leonards.

- Navigate
Curios in unusual places by 18 artists include biological specimens in a funeral director’s and the old Bexhill Cinema becoming a theatrical bridal emporium as part of this De La Warr Pavilion-produced initiative (September 20 to October 6, www.dlwp.com/event/navigate).

- As The World Tipped
Another popular show for those who missed it at Brighton Festival. Wired Aerial Theatre’s outdoor theatrics tackle the idea that apocalypse is coming as humans continue to destroy the environment (Stade Open Space, Hastings Old Town, Saturday, September 21, from 7.30pm, free).

- Pop-up Cinema Screening Day
The shipping containers next to Swan Boating Lake in Hastings Old Town become a cinema for the day on September 22 with short films by local residents among the offerings. Charlotte Spencer’s Cycling Stories – The Documentary, kicks things off at 2.30pm.

  • Coastal Currents takes place at venues across Hastings, St Leonards, Bexhill and Rye, from Friday, September 21, to Sunday, October 6. For more information, visit www.coastalcurrents.org.uk